She’s also exploring a lawsuit filed by a local cab driver against the city.

In today’s Spectator:

The president of a packaging company may not be the first person you think of as an environmental activist – but that’s before you meet Robert Pocus of Hamilton’s TekPak Solutions.

New big trucks face tougher standards for greenhouse gas emissions by 2018, although some groups warn the reduction targets can’t be met.

On the markets:

TORONTO - The Toronto stock market appears headed for a slightly higher open although investors may be wary of the unclear political situation in Italy, which has Europe’s third-largest economy and one of the region’s highest national debts.

The TSX could find some support from the financial sector after Bank of Montreal (TSX:BMO) delivered surprisingly strong revenue and a first-quarter profit that remained above $1 billion, beating analyst estimates. Analysts had estimated about $958 million in adjusted profit, the equivalent of $1.48 per share. Instead, BMO beat that by four cents per share with $1.041 billion of adjusted net income, up $69 million or seven per cent from a year earlier.

Commodities were mixed Tuesday. Gold prices were higher but oil and metals fell after the initial results of the Italian election showed voters were fed up with the austerity measures enacted by the previous technocratic government led by Mario Monti, who was brought in to deal with the country’s huge debt levels.

The Canadian dollar advanced after a six-session losing streak that brought the loonie down to its lowest levels since late last June. The currency was up 0.19 of a cent to 97.5 cents US.

U.S. futures were higher amid a strong earnings report from Home Depot.

The TSX fell 51 points Monday while the Italian political uncertainty sent the Dow industrials tumbling 216 points.

In Europe Italy’s FTSE MIB index was the worst-performing index, with some of the banking stocks suspended for a brief period after precipitous falls at the open. The index was trading 4.25 per cent lower, having earlier been nearly five per cent down.

Earlier in Asia, standout losses were recorded by Japan’s Nikkei, which slid 2.3 per cent as the yen appreciated to the potential detriment of the country’s exporters.

Analysts had estimated about $958 million in adjusted profit, the equivalent of $1.48 per share.

Instead, BMO beat that by four cents per share with $1.041 billion of adjusted net income — up $69 million or seven per cent from a year earlier.

The bank’s revenue and net income were also well above consensus estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters.

• TORONTO - Maple Leaf Foods Inc. (TSX: MFI) has reported a more than six-fold increase in quarterly net earnings even as Canada’s largest food processor saw a three per cent decline in sales. Maple Leaf said net income attributable to common shareholders was $54.6 million or 38 cents per diluted share in the three months ended Dec. 31, up from $8.4 million or six cents per diluted share in the same 2011 quarter. Revenue fell slightly to $1.2 billion from $1.24 billion.

The agency says earnings were 2.8 per cent higher on a year-over-year basis.

It says this annual increase reflects a number of factors, including wage growth, changes in composition of employment by industry, occupation and level of job experience, as well as average hours worked per week.

Internationally:

• SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Puerto Rico’s Port Authority says the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has approved a plan to privatize operations at the island’s largest airport.

All that’s left now is for Gov. Alejandro Garcia-Padilla to sign off on a deal that has generated fierce opposition in the U.S. island territory. The governor has until midnight Tuesday to approve the agreement, which was initiated under his predecessor.

Under the deal, Aerostar Airport Holdings would operate the Luis Munoz Marin Airport in San Juan for 40 years. The company would pay $615 million up front, $2.5 million annually for five years and a portion of revenues thereafter. Airport workers have protested over fears of lost jobs and reduced wages and some members of the legislature have sought to block the deal.

• AMIENS, France - Workers at a dying French tire factory who’ve become the butt of American jokes are staging a day of last-ditch protests to try to save their jobs.

The protests Tuesday at the Goodyear plant in the northern city of Amiens come after efforts to find a new buyer for the struggling plant have fizzled. An American executive who considered buying it sent a letter last week to the French government saying that France’s economic model is too worker-friendly and discourages investment.

Union leader Mickael Wamen says Goodyear “wants to bring us down to the level of a Chinese worker who earns one euro and lives in misery.”

Industrial sites across France are struggling in Europe’s downturn. French unemployment is more than 10 per cent and rising.

• ATLANTA - Home Depot’s fiscal fourth-quarter net income surged 32 per cent, beating expectations with help from strong U.S. sales and an extra week of shopping.

The nation’s biggest home improvement retailer also said Tuesday that it will buy back $17 billion of its common stock and boosted its quarterly dividend by 34 per cent.

Its shares rose 98 cents, or 1.5 per cent, to $64.90 in premarket trading.

For the period ended Feb. 3, Home Depot Inc. earned $1.02 billion, or 68 cents per share. That compares with $774 million, or 50 cents per share, a year ago. Analysts polled by FactSet expected 64 cents per share.

The chain said that the extra week in the current quarter increased its earnings by about 7 cents per share.